“And left it at the scene to incriminate Verdoris. Is that the same reason you bribed one of her employees to cut the power at the Research Institute?”
“Yes.” Miserably.
Duncan said, “Dr. Glimm, why so brutal a method of killing the horse? Surely a lethal injection would have been more humane.”
Glimm gave a humorless laugh. “And who would have been the first one to be suspected? No, I had to do it in a way to direct suspicion away from myself.” He was silent a moment, and then added: “Arbiters, you never knew Longstride. He was a magnificent animal, truly magnificent. Killing him was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I felt as if I were cutting my own throat.”
And so you were. Duncan glanced at the other two arbiters. Britt and Hartley shook their heads; no more questions. It was time to pronounce judgment.
“Dr. Thorin Glimm,” Duncan said, “you are hereby sentenced to exile from Pirmacha for the rest of your natural life. If you ever attempt to return to Pirmacha for any reason whatsoever, you will be incarcerated for a period of time to be determined by a later tribunal. Moreover, all your goods and property are forfeit to Roj Kordan in partial recompense for the grievous harm you have done him. Do you understand the sentence?”
Duncan’s tone softened. “Dr. Glimm, you’ll be given time to settle your affairs before your exile begins. But you do understand, don’t you, that you’ll not be allowed to practice veterinary medicine ever again?”
Glimm nodded. “It doesn’t matter. Somehow... somehow I just don’t have the heart for it anymore.”
At Duncan’s signal, Copely summoned the security officers to take Glimm away. His head sagged down on his chest as he left, suddenly an old man.
“Thank God that’s over,” Hartley said with a sigh of relief. “Now we can get out of here.”
But Mother had to have the last word. “At least you cleaned up after yourselves,” she admitted grudgingly. “But don’t you ever, ever make such a mess again!”
Copely was driving them back to the landing field where their shuttles waited. The councilwoman was all smiles, a startling contrast to her dour anger on the trip in. “The only downside is that Glimm’s daughter will lose her inheritance,” she was saying. “Sins of the fathers. But she’s hardly left out in the cold. She’s part of the Verdoris family now.”
“It’s your law,” Hartley said shortly.
“Oh, I wasn’t criticizing,” Copley said with a smile. “In fact, we’re eternally grateful to you. You not only found Longstride’s killer, you also alerted us to a greater danger.”
“You mean the osteodisjunctus,” Duncan said.
“That’s what I mean. We’ll shut down operations for a while, until we can do a thorough testing of all the livestock on Pirmacha. If we find any examples of Dr. Glimm’s ‘anomaly’ in the blood...”
“What will you do?” Britt asked.
“Destroy the carriers, of course,” Copely said. “But in a more humane manner than the way Dr. Glimm dispatched poor Longstride.” She sighed. “I wish you could have met Longstride, Arbiters. He was the greatest horse I have ever known.”
Duncan half expected a sarcastic comment from Mother, but none came.
They reached the landing field. With repeated expressions of gratitude, Copely bade them farewell. The arbiters had been on Pirmacha less than a full real-time day, but to Duncan it seemed like a year. Britt and Hartley looked every bit as drained as he felt, pinch-faced and not at all pleased with themselves. Today had not been the team’s most stellar performance; none of the three would ever be regaling grandchildren with stories of Pirmacha.
Wearily Duncan climbed into his shuttle, wondering if they were going to be sent to bed without their supper.
The Good Partner
by Peter Robinson
© 1994 by Peter Robinson
Yorkshire born and bred, but for a number of years a resident of Canada, Peter Robinson goes back to his roots in his mystery series featuring Inspector Banks. The research for his fiction, he told a recent gathering of mystery fans, requires him to return frequently to the beautiful Yorkshire Dales and the ancient pubs his detective would frequent. The following is Banks’s second appearance in a short story, but he is the protagonist of all six of Peter Robinson’s novels...
1.
The louring sky was black as a tax inspector’s heart when Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks pulled up outside 17 Oakley Crescent at eight o’clock one mid-November evening. An icy wind whipped up the leaves and set them skittering around his feet as he walked up the path to the glass-panelled door.
Detective Constable Susan Gay was waiting for him inside, and Peter Darby, the police photographer, was busy with his video recorder. Between the glass coffee table and the brick fireplace lay the woman’s body, blood matting the hair around her left temple. Banks put on his latex gloves, then bent and picked up the object beside her. The bronze plaque read, “Eastvale Golf Club, 1991 Tournament. Winner: David Fosse.” There was blood on the base of the trophy. The man Banks assumed to be David Fosse sat on the sofa staring into space.
A pile of photographs lay on the table. Banks picked them up and flipped through them. Each was dated 13 November 1993 across the bottom. The first few showed group scenes — red-eyed people eating, drinking, and dancing at a banquet of some kind — but the last ones told a different story. Two showed a handsome young man in a navy blue suit, white shirt, and garish tie, smiling lecherously at the photographer from behind a glass of whisky. Then the scene shifted to a hotel room, where the man had loosened his tie. None of the other diners was to be seen. In the last picture, he had also taken off his jacket. The date had changed to 14 November 1993.
Banks turned to the man on the sofa. “Are you David Fosse?” he asked.
There was a pause while the man seemed to return from a great distance. “Yes,” he said finally.
“Can you identify the victim?”
“It’s my wife, Kim.”
“What happened?”
“I... I was out taking the dog for a walk. When I got back I found...” He gestured towards the floor.
“When did you go out?”
“Quarter to seven, as usual. I got back about half past and found her like this.”
“Was your wife in when you left?”
“Yes.”
“Was she expecting any visitors?”
He shook his head.
Banks held out the photos. “Have you seen these?”
Fosse turned away and grunted.
“Who took them? What do they mean?”
Fosse stared at the Axminster carpet.
“Mr. Fosse?”
“I don’t know.”
“The date. November thirteenth. Last Saturday. Is that significant?”
“My wife was at a business convention in London last weekend. I assume they’re the pictures she took.”
“What kind of convention?”
“She’s involved in servicing home offices and small businesses. Servicing,” he sneered. “Now there’s an apt term.”